Crypto startups are slogging through a bear market for virtual currencies.

The struggles faced by crypto enterprises are compounded by the fact that a number of them have been beset with infighting and delays in launching their technologies, in part because many are open-source projects with problematic rules over who governs them.

One project called Decred is aiming to tackle that problem with its more inclusive decision-making structure. Decred’s leader and co-founder Jake Yocom-Piatt compares the project’s governance to a public company having a single class of shares with equal voting power.

Although few crypto projects have yet to draw wide mainstream adoption, venture capitalists say governance issues are crucial to building investor confidence and long-term viability.

While not as high profile as some other crypto projects, Decred has drawn interest from investors. Placeholder VC, the New York firm founded by Chris Burniske and Joel Monegro, invested in the project after Decred’s token was publicly trading on crypto exchanges.

The project was designed to avoid problems that have shaken up other crypto projects, Mr. Yocom-Piatt said.

A clash between rival bitcoin factions, for example, caused a rupture that led one faction to launch a new version called Bitcoin Cash. A similar thing happened with Ethereum, giving rise to an alternative coin called Ethereum Classic.

Bitcoin, by design, was formed without a clear system for decision making.

Decred’s governance is different in that it employs a hybrid model that aims to limit feuding between and among developers and stakeholders. “It’s a more inclusive system,” Mr. Yocom-Piatt said.

The project allocates some voting power according to the computing power a miner has. But it also bases some of that power according to the amount of tokens a person holds.

Decred enables the broader participation of developers and token holders in big decisions such as future features of the project and the rules of what constitutes a valid block, or piece of its blockchain technology. Mr. Yocom-Piatt said smaller, day-to-day decisions can be made by developers.

It’s a system, says Mr. Yocom-Piatt, that enables a more truly decentralized cryptocurrency.

Decred, which on Wednesday announced it would be listed on crypto exchange OKCoin, is one of a handful of crypto projects trying new approaches to governance.

If it can show that its decentralized power structure works, Decred could win over the crypto world’s developers and token holders, who decry the central control of technology wielded by large companies.

“A lot of developers we work with feel good being able to vote,” Mr. Yocom-Piatt said. “Even if they vote against something and lose, the fact that they’re able to have their voice heard…makes people glad.”

But perhaps more important, Decred’s hybrid voting structure could enable smoother decision making and the faster development of technology.

That could help avoid problems that have caused squabbles that divided a number of projects. And it could adhere to the ideals of decentralization—which often is the reason many entrepreneurs and developers got into crypto projects in the first place.

Decred is a community-directed digital currency designed to be a superior store of value for generations to come.
Its hybrid PoW+PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury, make it secure, adaptable, and self-sustaining.
Decred stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, changes to the consensus rules, and they approve the miners’ work.
Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury.